The rumor mill went into overdrive today when Yahoo’s top story on their homepage was about the new album that Van Halen is going to supposedly release next year. The story read, in part:
‘Guitarist Eddie Van Halen and his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, released a statement saying, “[Van Halen] is currently in the studio recording an album with Roth that is due for release in 2011.”‘
The only problem with Yahoo’s story is that it’s not true! Yahoo must have assumed that Van Halen wrote or at least okayed the error-ridden press release from Warner/Chappell, which included one sentence about an album that’s “due for release in 2011. But the band had nothing to do with that statement. In fact, there were so many errors in that press release that one should take the little Van Halen update that it contained with a grain of salt.
This reminds us of what happened a month ago when Rolling Stone wrongly said that Janie Van Halen “denied” the rumors of a new album, when in reality she simply said, “What is going around is exactly that, rumors. I don’t have any updates at this time.” That’s essentially a “No comment,” not a denial.
Yahoo’s story was picked up by Perezhilton.com & many other websites today. This is sloppy journalism and it just proves two things:
1) There’s a lot of people in the world who really want more music from Van Halen!
2) You shouldn’t believe everything you read, even if it comes from Yahoo, Rolling Stone, or Warner Bros.
We at the Van Halen News Desk know that fans are getting very excited about all the rumors about a new album, but we just want to make sure that people understand that the band hasn’t promised or said anything. We don’t want people to be disappointed if next year comes and goes without an album from Van Halen. Stay tuned!
